


Down to the River

by amonkeysue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, also some Steve and Pepper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2341370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonkeysue/pseuds/amonkeysue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tell me again how we managed to get pinned down in the middle of an intersection?!"<br/>"We were avoiding a big blast!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down to the River

Okay, this looked bad.

It was hardly the first time Clint and Natasha had been in a treacherous set of circumstances while doing what they knew best, but that did nothing against the threat of danger.

The day’s particular threat were hordes of some low key villain’s cyborg assassin clones that had been apparently been stewing underground. All the Avengers had been called in, but had quickly been forced to spread across Queens to properly respond. Half the area had already been evacuated before the path of destruction.

Clint and Natasha were fighting off the clones, hunkered behind whatever car was most convenient for defensive purposes.

In between a series of shots, Natasha yelled to Clint, “Tell me again how we managed to get pinned down in the middle of an intersection?!”

“We were avoiding a big blast! And now we’ve got a hell of a situation here!”

“Not our best firefight,” Natasha agreed.

He managed in a curt nod before shooting a net arrow. It managed to catch a couple of the charging assassins and knock them down.

Out of habit, both Clint and Natasha automatically took advantage of the momentary break to scan for other assailants who could be incoming and attempt to plot a path to a better cover.

An office building stood about 40 feet behind them, but there were very few cars in between their position and said building. The other option was to slowly work their way across the intersection. It provided more car cover, although with the added side effect of forcing themselves further into the open.

It went as an unspoken agreement that they would aim for getting to the office building as best they could.

“Widow, on your left!” Clint sharply warned.

She whirled, only looking into the masked gaze of a clone for a second before shooting it through the heart. It fell forward after making a ticking sound.

“We don’t have the time to deliberate here. All we’re doing is providing them with more information on our weak flanks from where we stand,” she stated, her tone all business.

“A big blast could buy us a couple extra seconds for the run.”

Her response was a nod while she inched towards the end of the car nearest the office building.

Clint pulled an explosive-tip arrow from his quiver and aimed for a cluster of overturned cars. After he fired the arrow, he turned and stepped into a crouch beside Natasha, all while maintaining a mental count of the seconds elapsed.

Right before the cars exploded, he motioned for them to run.

Small ticking noises filled the air behind them, accompanied by an almost inhuman screeching of annoyance.

“Cover me while I worry about the doors!” Natasha ordered when they were only around 10 feet away.

One of the clones jumped down at Clint, knocking his bow out of hand, before he could voice his reply.

“Clint!”

A whirring noise accompanied the clone attempting to fit its hands around Clint’s neck. He managed to hold the clone at bay until it pushed forward. Both Clint and clone toppled backwards.

He groaned as a metal fist came crashing into his stomach. Clint hastily kicked up at the clone and tried to push it off him. The same fist crashed into his upper right arm with an ugly crack. A pained yelp escaped Clint.

Natasha’s hands came down to fit her garrote around the clone’s neck with a hard tug to pull it backwards into a good leverage point. Bloodstained fingers clawed at the clone’s throat while it let out harsh gasps for air. With a gurgle, it slowly stopped struggling.

She gasped and let the clone’s body down after Clint backed out of the way.

“Broken?”

“Bad.”

In the short span of time it had taken to eliminate the clone, at least ten more had rapidly approached, many with tactical knives in hand.

“Damn.”

Relatively ignoring his arm, Clint scurried to his feet, reaching to pull an arrow from his quiver to at least have a weapon in hand.

The clones darted at Natasha and Clint.

She fired into chests point blank, knocking aside the swaying bodies of any who got too close to keep her line of vision open. A knife slipped into Natasha’s shoulder. She hissed in pain and stuck an elbow into the clone’s gut before managing to twist around at the waist and fire a Bite at the clone’s sternum.

He narrowly avoided several punches and repeatedly stabbed his arrow into any clone body part that got close enough. Warm droplets of blood occasionally spattered him. A knife edge skittered down his arm and another fist sucker punched him. Clint growled and lashed out with several well aimed kicks before continuing to stab into whatever limb was available.

The clones rained down blows on both Clint and Natasha. He broke several fingers while trying to keep the worst from connecting with him. At some point Natasha had split her lip open. Rivulets of blood lined their cheeks and arms from various little nicks.

One clone stabbed a knife into Natasha’s thigh. She nearly fell, catching herself only barely.

It attempted to leap on top of her. As they both fell back, Natasha hooked a leg over the clone’s shoulder and grabbed a knife from one of the nearby bodies to slice the clone’s opposite shoulder open, cloth to muscle tissue.

A bitter howl rang out as the clone instinctively reached for the wound.

“Widow!”

“I’ve got it!” Natasha huffed out before sticking the knife into the clone’s chest and twisting, ignoring the blood that dripped onto her until she pushed the body off.

She lay there for a moment, allowing her breath to come in large gulps.

Clint gritted his teeth and lunged for his bow, quickly swinging it around as a weapon against the two remaining clones, who decided to divide, one focusing on Clint, the other on Natasha.

The bow was knocked out of his hand with a rough jerk. He opted to use his good arm for an attempted punch. The clone grabbed Clint’s arm and nearly popped his elbow, only stopped by Clint stomping on its foot and jerking a knee up into the groin area. He grabbed the knife out of the clone’s belt and stabbed it in the stomach.

While Clint had been busy with the one, the other had somewhat taken Natasha by surprise. Before she could scramble up to her feet, it had stomped on her left hand. She bit back a scream and fired a Bite with her right. Despite her aim being unsteady due to the tears that had gathered in her eyes, it connected with the clone, which twitched and swayed for several moments.

She blinked the tears out of her eyes and drew one of her Glocks, her aim steady for the kill shot.

“You okay?” Clint stumbled towards her, offering her his good hand to help her to his feet. Natasha quickly figured that she had twisted an ankle.

“Are you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then you know my answer.”

His face lit up in a pained smile while he hunched over and clutched at his side. “Maybe we should get inside, since that it is what all this trouble was about.”

“Doors are open now at least.”

“Second floor?”

Natasha nodded. “Quickly. Before any more can surprise us.”

The two helped each other up the stairs and into a side office, both hissing in pain the whole way. Once inside the office, Natasha shoved filing cabinets in front of the door. A look from her part had sent Clint to cautiously sit against the far wall. After adjusting the cabinets, she carefully joined him. Many more body parts seemed to be screaming their hurts now that they had a moment to partially relax.

“We look like hell.”

“Surprise surprise,” Natasha tiredly commented before pulling out her communicator. “Stark, it’s Widow and Hawkeye. We both- hnngh- are badly injured. Currently we’re sheltered in the Arnold’s Toys offices, second floor, office number 207. Given our- aaah- present condition we don’t know how long we can hold this if attacked. Probably not long.”

Tony’s voice carried an air of urgency. “Widow, st- fzzt!”

Static had filled the line.

“Stark? Tony?” With a cry halfway between exasperation and pain, Natasha slumped back. “Damn it,” she muttered below her breath.

Clint weakly looped his left arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure ‘s gonna be okay Nat.”

“No, it’s not! We need backup Clint! Now, and very desperately if the clones try and get to us in here! We’re too heavily injured- we’re compromised!” she exclaimed.

“I know. Getting worked up isn’t going to help either of us though.” He tried to keep his voice as calm as possible.

Natasha leaned on his shoulder, ignoring the notes of pain that arose through her body. “For once we need an extraction. Urgently.”

“Mmm.”

They sat in silence for several long moments.

She shifted to be closer to Clint. “We’re going to bleed out before anyone can get to us, at this rate.”

“At least if we go together, that’s good I guess,” Clint softly remarked, “That is kind of what we always wanted.”

“Not necessarily like this though.”

“I’d choose this over torture. Even if the broken bones and stab wounds do suck.”

A bitter laugh boiled out of Natasha. “How many times have we managed on broken bones?”

“I don’t want to count.”

“Neither do I.”

Clint adjusted to quickly kiss Natasha. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Barton,” she whispered.

“Are you tired? ‘Cause I sure am.” His eyes glimmered with emotion.

“Wait. Clint, don’t you dare.” Unbidden, tears started to gather in Natasha’s eyes. “Not yet Clint. Stay with me for just a little longer. Please.”

He leaned his head on hers before murmuring, “I’m with you Natasha.”

“I… mmm.”

Silence again filled the air as both of them gave way to the allure of sleep.

\--

“JARVIS, please tell me they’re alive.”

“It would appear that they are, but barely so.”

Tony heavily exhaled, half relieved. “Okay.” He turned and flipped up his face mask to call out, “Cap, I’ve got ‘em! But they’re not pretty!”

Steve swore at the sight of Clint and Natasha’s limp forms. “How much of the blood is theirs?!”

“To be determined. More importantly, I don’t think we can get an ambulance back in here. We’ve got to hurry them to the hospital though.”

“I’ll take Clint.”

“Let’s pray that they pull through.”

\--

When she first came to, Clint was in the bed beside her. He had weakly smiled at her before they had a brief conversation. It had been cut off by doctors and nurses checking on them. Afterwards, exhaustion quickly lulled both of them back to sleep.

The next time she woke up, the ceiling tile consisted of a different grain and Clint wasn’t there in the room with her.

Steve and Pepper were. He was still in uniform, the shield on his back. Pepper looked as if she had come directly from the office. They tensely watched a scene outside the window.

Bruce quietly stepped into the room moments later and solemnly nodded.

Worry filled Natasha’s gut. She had a sickening feeling she was going to regret her question.

“Where’s Clint?”

The others turned to look at her. Pepper forced a relieved smile.

“Are you feeling okay?” she tiredly asked Natasha.

“I’m in the hospital as a patient,” Natasha drily replied, for a moment allowing her worry to stay far away from her thoughts.

“Right.”

Steve wrung his hands. “Tasha-.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it Steve.” She didn’t want any tears to come, but they didn’t listen. Natasha hurriedly moved to wipe them away and sharply inhaled. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“The surgery wasn’t enough,” Bruce quietly confirmed.

Pepper hesitated only briefly before handing an envelope to Natasha, pressing it into her hand. “He wondered if he was going to make it. Before the surgery, he wrote this for you.”

Sure enough, the envelope had Natasha’s name across it in Clint’s scrawl, albeit a little more untidy than usual.

She wordlessly opened the envelope, only half paying attention as the others respectfully filed out.

For a moment, the words blurred before her eyes until she focused on the fact that she needed to read the letter, even if just for some brief semblance of closure.

_Hey Nat,_

_So I guess if you’re reading this, I didn’t make it. That might be good, at least I didn’t have to suffer. Recovery’s always the worst. But if I’m dead and you’re reading this, then you have to suffer and I know that even though you don’t want to, you’re probably going to cry (or have cried). I’m sorry Nat. I know there was that one time that we talked about how it’d be best for us to die together. We thought we were going to, for a moment there. Go figure, I’m the one who makes the jerk move and dies first. Now I’m crying._

_Nat, I’ve got a favor to ask. Hang on. Please. The Black Widow is a legend. It’ll take a lot to knock you out of the game. But beyond that, don’t you dare give up on life or anything. I love you Natasha, and there will come a day (in the future!) where we can be with each other again, and I’ll probably hug you for a good five minutes, at least, when we finally see each other again. Call me cheesy, but I’ve got to believe in this._

_God Nat, I can’t even begin to say how much I love you and especially not when I’m limited for time. You helped me become a better man. You’re the best decision I ever made._

_Stay strong, I love you,_   
_Clint Barton_

Natasha buried her head in her hands and let out a shaky breath, emotion constricting her throat.

She straightened at the sound of a knock on the door.

“Um, you can come in.”

Tony was unnaturally sullen as he stepped into the room. “Hey.”

“You don’t need to avoid Clint.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Hmm.”

Silence crept in until Tony quickly broke it. “I’ve gotta do something for him. He was an Avenger and a good friend to everyone. I’m thinking a memorial somewhere. Any ideas to add?”

“Don’t make this into a spectacle.”

“I’m mildly offended that you think I would.”

“I… never mind Tony.”

“It’s rough.”

“I don’t think it’s really set in yet,” Natasha murmured, more to herself than to Tony.

He nodded. “It never does.”

She softly intoned, “I don’t think we’ll need a media circus.”

“I’ll see what I can do to make sure they’re limited.”

“Tony… thank you.” Natasha swallowed. “For being upfront.”

He flapped a hand in acknowledgement. “It’s what I do best.”

\--

An Avenger had died. The memorial had to be given an opening. Even though the media was subdued, it was still there. They had been barred from the funeral, but this had a more public nature to begin with.

Natasha maintained a calm demeanor for most of her eulogy. It was on her final words that she teared up.

“Clint was one of the bravest men I’ve ever known." Her voice faltered and caught in her throat, rendering her speechless for several moments until she roughly managed out, "He was a personal beacon of hope and I will be forever grateful that I’ve had the chance to share life with him.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Civil Wars' [You Are My Sunshine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibENEQXnP_E) accidentally inspired this.  
> [I also debated about including something with Kate Bishop at the end for a Hawkeye legacy sort of thing, but decided that it didn't quite fit with the rest for a one shot deal- but the thought still exists!]


End file.
